Anyone in IT can tell you, and Americans are notorious for this, that a completely full calendar is a badge of honor. Ideally not only should you have every minute of every day committed, but you should have overlapping meetings, preferably three deep. The thinking, as best I can figure it goes, “if you’re important, then everyone wants you to be in their meeting.” If you’re not as busy as you can possibly be, then you’re not contributing to your full ability.
The Busyness Fallacy
I have fallen into this trap, as has almost everyone I’ve ever worked with. No one has ever explicitly explained this to me, it’s cultural, implied. You notice that the people you report to have more full calendars than you do, and that the people they report to even more so. Expectations are set, and everyone very quickly comes to the same understanding: busy is good. Busy = advancement.
The longer I’ve been in the workforce, the more I’ve realized that conventional wisdom isn’t always right, however. I’ve found that some of my most profound insights have come from questioning what everyone just knew to be true, and almost nothing is held to be more true than the above. It’s for this reason that I was shocked when I read that Warren Buffet, the very symbol of American success, sustained over decades, had, at most, a single item in his daily planner that he’d kept his entire career. He would often have no scheduled appointments on a given day.
How? Why? Was Warren Buffet’s time not important? Was he not needed in meetings? By clients? How could he get away without committing every second of every day to someone or something, and why would he want to? It got me thinking.
Question the Fundamental Assumption
What is the effect of being busy all the time? Sure, attending a ton of meetings meant that you were in the loop, your voice was heard, your input recorded, but was that really the best use of one’s time? Of course, there are important meetings, but not every meeting is critical. While you’re busy, what is happening outside of the meeting room, and what signal does it send to your people that you’re always in one?
It occurred to me that adding a meeting to your calendar, in effect, took some of the slack out of your day. Slack that could be used to have a conversation with someone, handle an unexpected issue, or just sit and think for a moment. Schedule enough meetings, and there ends up being no slack in your day for these ostensibly less important things, but really, what could possibly be more important in a leader’s day than being available for his people?
The message that continuously being in meetings sends to your team is that you’re off doing important leader-y things, and that they should just learn to handle their unimportant issues by themselves. It removes availability, and creates an artificial separation between you and your team. This is exactly why I strongly advise against anyone in leadership ever wearing headphones at work. It sends the signal that your time is too important for your team, and that you should not be bothered.
Time to Breathe
After this realization, I’ve taken to actively leave as much time as I can open on my schedule. I attend meetings that I think are worth it, but don’t attend everything that I possibly can. I leave huge gaps in my schedule, and spend that time either at my desk available to my team, or walking around actively engaging them to see if they need anything from me.
It’s a sign about how ingrained the philosophy of busyness is in our culture that despite this, when people come to my desk to ask me a question, they often preface it with an apology or an acknowledgement that they know how busy I am, but if they could just get a moment of my time they’d really appreciate it. I consistently respond that nothing I could be doing would be more important than helping them with their problem, but the apologies persist. If they’re reluctant to bring their issues to me when I’m sitting quietly at my desk, do you think I’d ever hear about it if I spent all day, every day in a meeting? I’d never have any idea what my team was doing, if they were struggling, and I’d never be available to help them with their problems.
Serving Your Team
This approach has an additional benefit that reinforces another priciple of mine: creating opportunity for others. Some meetings are important, but not critical. They need leadership in attendance, but does it have to be me? I’ve started asking members of my team that have shown an interest in leadership or management to attend these meetings in my place, and to let me know if anything comes out of it that needs my attention. This has the duel effect of keeping my schedule free, and giving members of my team exposure and experience leading meetings.
Inevitably things go wrong where something important gets missed, or a detail gets miscommunicated. Afterall, these people are learning how to lead. Imagine, however, how much worse these misses would be if I were constantly in meetings and less aware of the issues the team was dealing with. By keeping my time free, I notice much faster and am much more available to deal with things that unexpectedly come up.
I know that this entire post could be construed as a defense of laziness, of having others do your work for you, but the truth is I’m just as busy all day as I ever was before. The difference is that I spend all of my time handling things that only I can do. Things come up unexpectedly all day, things that I would be otherwise unaware of if I kept myself fully scheduled, and I have the flexibility to handle them. I spend all day addressing my number one priority, helping my team.
In the end, it’s not about doing less work, it’s about priorities. By leaving your day open, you are prioritizing your team over the appearance of importance, prioritizing flexibility over your own visibility, and prioritizing your teams goals over your own, and nothing is more important than that.